Vocal Coach/Opera Singer REACTION & ANALYSIS Nightwish + Floor Jansen "The Poet and the Pendulum"

welcome back to the charismatic voice today I'm gonna be reacting to the song that you've requested the most in the last two weeks which is the poet and the pendulum by nightwish and featuring 4y Ansan now a lot of you did warn me that the song is really deep so I did a little bit of research ahead of time and I looked up the lyrics and some of the backstory I understand that Tomas wrote this shortly after targa and the band split he's very clearly experiencing extreme loss and grief there are five acts and eventually it leads to a new beginning so I'm really excited to see how this all is expressed in their music let's get to it [Music] [Music] [Music] okay gonna stop before they go on much further by the way this is going to be a long song the video is about 14 minutes long so hang in there with me I was really interested in struck at first how there was this whispering in the backing track I think that's a backing track I didn't see anybody live on stage I could be wrong but in the headphones it was really interesting how it was panned back and forth to both sides which really denotes like voices in your head or voices all around you surrounding you so I thought that was a particularly interesting choice on that might sort of be a reference I know that this this was partly inspired by an Edgar Allan Poe work I think it was the pit and the pendulum that talked about psychological warfare so I wonder if that was partly in reference to that psychological warfare but also I think it's really interesting how you have this really magical sound in the orchestra it's like something you would see in a fantasy film but then it's paired as well with a sound like a young child's voice and that I can't tell what words are being said but that sort of child's voice and the minor-key paired together often symbolize some sort of loss or death and you I'm definitely getting a feeling of something that has just crumbled but let's keep going I'll start it just a little bit before us if I get this transition [Music] boom they're the pendulums in the background Wow oh okay before she really gets in here too much further there's a lot musically that's going on first of all any time you start adding drums you're gonna get a lot more energy in this sound which you can I guess that's self-evident here you can just really feel how instantly you get drums you're like ooh oh my heart's beating faster right so you have a lot more life now in this part in addition they have so many fun different rhythmic structures as they're falling back and forth between that it definitely is building anticipation and I also think that it goes with this swinging pendulum in the background this idea of like maybe a cyclical cycle or something like this okay let's catch one hmm [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] whoa [Applause] [Music] whoo whoo okay some really really cool things happening in there first of all I just I love floors voice she's she's so expressive but has power and I loved this girl she put in in the middle but one of the things that I thought was the coolest in here was actually the descending chromatic passage that's hard to tune but she tuned it very well um but it also echos one of those rhythmic passages as well and the instrumental part right before where they had this ascending chromatic so that's like when a bunch of musical pitches are really close together as they go down and if the traumatic it tends to feel a little creepier a little darker so let's go back and check that out one more time so expressive and really good felt too [Music] [Applause] that oh that's really good ooh listen to that one more time [Applause] [Music] Wow Wow [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I I love her clarity of diction she very very clearly has some classical training in the way that just the way she's relaxing her mouth yet opening it up and enunciated her words so much but at the same time she has just this power that she brings and so much anger to in this sound at this part sounds like it's like in that angry stage of grief just so frustrated everything that's happening happening and not even able to cry because it's hurting it's hurting so much hi I really love hearing how she's able to channel that anger into her vocals while maintaining excellent technique most people would just become totally clammed up and and very constricted and she keeps it open so she can just let the emotion pour out [Music] [Applause] Oh sis achromatic again [Music] [Applause] [Music] guys guys also that takes so much breath control that was a lot of words a lot of scene for a long time and you could hear them just like when they took a breath in you didn't hear any gasp you heard it just open so no no huh none of that kind of sound that actually isn't eating the air coming through that your vocal cords come closer together and that's what makes this sound when you gasp so they just both open and go and that's the kind of gas that brings in a ton of air so that they can keep on singing these endless words it's really really good let's do that one more time [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] well a lot of words to get out there [Music] next time today [Music] [Music] cello and orchestra string orchestra obviously [Music] [Music] okay I have to tell you guys this was just magical and this is the reason I wore this t-shirt today uh I think that floor is a magical singer but she also has awesome vocal controls so I want to do see science like magic but real because part of what she's doing here is just about her breath control and it's about having vocal cords come together really easily with a low phonation threshold pressure so I love that she's able to just use her larynx well to make us experience these wonderful things that's so cool so so cool it's yeah it's magic that's real look I want to get a little more of that [Music] but you can play [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] next act not sure hmm be great again and again again well I know I died not to find yourself screaming I just waited the tide last whoa that is so intense ah I did not expect these words if he's set like this in a whisper and it makes it more intense to have them as a whisper that I think they would be sung it's so whoa I just like and definitely made my heart race also I'm I'm loving the orchestral nature of the composition as well it's you definitely hear the the it was like much smoother strings in the orchestra when you had something that was more mournful and that was that floaty section from floor but now as this section transitioned you heard a lot more brass and definitely like more angular movement in the orchestra Thomas is a really good workers trader [Music] also big fires in to be dramatic [Music] [Music] hmm hmm hmm [Applause] okay were to come back to this sorry I was just about to solder when I heard him screaming so we'll come back to that but first let's talk about that instrumental interlude there you could hear those angular moments in the orchestra that I was talking about right before when it becomes a little more dramatic and then also you have these like inner burst choral moments as well where they're singing like ooze or us and that that definitely echoes back to like Carmina Burana kind of writing where it's super dramatic you would definitely hear that in an epic moment in a film score so I think that was really really cool in addition I love hearing the bass note in this progression if you listen to the bass you can always tell when you're like home you're good and then suddenly it'll like jump up and vary what I'll call like non pop harmony progression and it feels also angular so that's all adding to this it feels like a much more aggressive nature from the music this is very smartly composed let's go back so we catch that transition to him screaming you grab those pliers [Applause] [Applause] [Music] ah just so you guys know screaming or growling or there's a lot of different ways to describe but he was just doing um that can be done in a healthy way often the only way I can really measure if a person is doing this without damaging their voice is saying can these thing afterwards you know some people will be able to chew afford doing a little growl but maybe not do it the right way but then they feel totally exhausted after that and they have bad vocal tone if that's the case you're doing it wrong it's possible to relax your throat and I'll go into detail on this in one of my Q&A videos one day I think about the actual anatomy of what you need to do to scream properly so I'll leave it till then but just so you know the way I would judge it is can they sing afterwards [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Wow mm to cast the world stopped crying [Music] well Wow did you hear that at the end it sounded like a blade going past right not just a pendulum like not just something that's inside of a clock but like a blade instead listen to that at the very end that was cool what a cool sound effect to put in there and now a heartbeat so this might actually be the next act I might have spoken too soon [Music] [Music] one thing to notice again orchestration lies I think you have an oboe that is currently the solo in the orchestra part right now there's also a piano in there an oboe is often used to express morning so in particular I feel like this part is definitely is going to have a lot more mourning in it [Music] [Music] [Music] Flor right now is doing something super super smart vocally she is actually thinning out the sound a little bit to make it more clear and help us to hear the words a little bit more if you're just singing oohs and ahhs you can fill that up but it's hard for really clear vowels and consonants to be heard as distinctly and she and said has created this beautiful pristine clear sound in a higher register so it's really fascinating to hear how many options she has in different registers in her voice most people don't have that many options available to them but she clearly does and she's been able to sing with a growl with a belt she's been able to sing it like a super low register with really clear words and in a much higher register with really clear words and there's just G's been able to float things to like like a true opera singer so it's it's just I love seeing how smart walkway she is [Music] [Music] he has a mixed belt [Music] [Music] so terminology wise headphone wire terminology ways the first price she was using I would call it more of a true head voice where she just had a if she was able to make it thinner and more clear and then when you hear this belt up there I don't think she's taking her full chest voice up it's what I think we would refer to as more of a mixed belt but I will talk a lot more about what mixed voices in in a Q&A video soon or yes very soon [Music] Wow [Music] [Music] ah oh oh listen to the different ways she expresses the same descending notes this is so amazing this really takes a look at how beautiful and wonderful of a singer she is oh let's go back let him worry [Music] so this way was very clean I would say and explain a little delay in that one [Music] I think there was one mother for the ship I'll go back ah okay I want to go back and catch that ending one more time um this also or the way she's singing these notes at the end she's really giving them a clean onset so that the mean that means that the air hits her vocal cords right as they start vibrating it's a really beautiful efficient way to begin singing also a mark of great technique so let's go back again and also I'm trying to keep in mind even though this is a descending line it feels like things are being put to peace because I believe that this is symbolizing a new beginning huh cause like minimalism [Music] either since the beginning [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] Wow that I really love that ending so much I mentioned minimalism that's like a style of music composition um where usually things really slowly evolve and you hear a lot of patterns repeating I this kind of composition style you would see a little more in film music as well though I also have seen it in opera and I really love the way that minimalism actually represents a lot of times evolution in the way that things would slowly evolve so I think that's fascinating had that be a compositional choice at the end of this piece that represents the new beginning guys that was my first time through the entire piece and there is so much that I know I did not catch so please write in the comments below what you think the meaning of this song is there I know that there are five acts but I had troubles really distinctly saying exactly where each of them happened so you know get some timestamps on those and tell me what you think each of those phases really represented it to Thomas as well also please keep sounding off on what you would like to hear next and come say hello to me sometime in a premiere on Mondays and Fridays at 8 a.m. I host live chats during the premieres of videos and I'd love to meet you so come say hello I hope to see you soon you

Channel: The Charismatic Voice

Views: 714,250

Rating: 4.9592624 out of 5

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Id: eOlkEgOeNNc

Length: 31min 35sec (1895 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 12 2020